We don’t know that we’re better than pre-500AD “measurably”. We have limited information about life in those times. Much of the historical testimony is plausible fiction, not historical fact.

I’m glad to be living today in 2015, but it’s likely I would’ve done just fine in Ancient Greece, or Rome in its heydey. I wouldn’t know any better, just as I don’t know what I’m missing by not being alive at 2500AD. Our limitations are bound to the eras we find ourselves in.